Chapter One
The queen bees of Sunbonnet, Wyoming, were all abuzz.
Savannah Stephens was back, in the flesh this time.
How long had it been since the last time they'd pulled
Savannah, dressed only in satin bra and lace panties, out
of their mailboxes? She'd been quite the regular fixture
on the cover of that mail-order catalog for quite a while.
Of course, everyone knew all about how those pictures got
touched up. But they had to admit, Savannah had the basic
equipment. And it was all natural. She was born and raised
right there in Sunbonnet. She was all-natural. That dewy-
eyed smile had been just the right counterpoint for the
flawless body of a woman who didn't have to think twice
about walking around in broad daylight wearing nothing but
pretty under-wear.
Then suddenly she'd vanished. Air-brushed clean away, as
though somebody had thrown a coat over her and dragged her
back into the house. Had it been three years ago, maybe
five?
The drones had noticed right away when it happened, but
they hadn't said much. Once Savannah was gone, the men had
gotten their catalog back. If anybody was to order
anything, it was probably going to be a man. He'd send for
something black and lacy for his own lady, something she
would put on for him, just so he could take it off. The
next morning she would tuck it away in a drawer, and he'd
never see it again. Then it was back to the mailbox again.
Sure, the men missed seeing Savannah, but there was still
plenty of diversion on the cover of Lady Elizabeth's
Dreamwear Catalog.
Still, the women pondered aloud on occasion. What ever
became of SavannahStephens?
Some had heard she'd found greener pastures, but there
were all sorts of tales about the nature of green. A movie
mogul with a pocketful of green had her stashed in a
cottage beside the green sea. Or she'd starved herself
like they all did to stay slim, taken to eating nothing
but lettuce and drinking green tea, and she'd just wasted
away. Some said she'd made so much green herself, she'd
been able to retire and get fat. Heck, she always was
pretty sassy.
The ebb and flow of such comments depended on the weather
and what else was in the news, but they never sloshed
through the door of the Sunbonnet Mercantile, owned and
operated by Billie Larsen, the only relative Savannah had
left in Sunbonnet. Or anywhere else, as far as anyone
knew. The old general store was a gallery of pictures of
Savannah dressed in pretty suits and glamorous evening
clothes. The catalogs were stashed underneath the counter.
Billie was proud of those, too, but she didn't tack them
on the wall.
Whenever anyone asked, Billie said that her niece was
taking some time off from her modeling career. The
response hadn't changed in five years. Conventional wisdom
calculated that it had probably been five years since
Billie had heard from her once famous niece, and the
conventionally wise were not surprised to hear she'd
finally come home with her tail tucked between her legs.
It just proved that New York City was no place for a nice
girl from Wyoming. It was bitch eat bitch in places like
New York and L.A., or so the females of Sunbonnet had
heard. And so they were fond of saying.
The males of Sunbonnet still weren't saying much. They
couldn't imagine pastures any greener than the pages of
Lady Elizabeth's Dreamwear Catalog. The thought of that
tail and those legs coming home to Sunbormet seemed too
damn good to be true. They'd have to see to believe, and
so far, the sightings had been few.
But she was surely back.
Even if every person Clay Keogh tipped his hat to hadn't
mentioned it hard on the heels of saying how quickly the
weather had changed this week, he would have known she was
close by. Suddenly the clean, dry Wyoming air carried her
scent again.
He'd parked his pickup in the shade of the loafing shed
behind the Sunbonnet Mercantile, which was the oldest
building in town. He was careful not to glance at the
upstairs windows as he unloaded the tools of his trade. He
had as good a buzz on as any bee, and he hadn't even had a
drink in weeks. His face flamed in the shade of his cap as
he took a quick inventory of the handles in his toolbox.
He could have sworn he had Tabasco sauce coursing through
his veins, a notion that made him chuckle. Dearly did he
love anything spicy, but cayenne in his blood? Not likely.
Wyoming dirt made him red-blooded, pure and plain.
Was she upstairs in her aunt Billie's spare room, fixing a
face that never needed any fixing? Or was she downstairs,
helping out behind the counter, the way she used to when
they were kids? He hadn't noticed any cowboys lining up to
buy a pack of gum they might never open or a postage stamp
for a letter they'd surely never write. If he hurried,
maybe he could be first.
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